Browse the Greenfield Hill Church records in Greenfield Hill, Fairfield, Connecticut

Greenfield Hill Congregational Church in Greenfield Hill, Connecticut was organized in 1726 with the Rev. John Goodsell as its first settled minister. Greenfield Hill was part of Fairfield until 1725. Rev. Goodsell was dismissed in 1756 and Rev. Seth Pomeroy was ordained in 1758. He served as minister until his death in 1770. The third settled minister in Greenfield Hill was Rev. William Tennant, who served from 1772 until he was dismissed in 1781. Rev. Timothy Dwight was ordained in 1783. He had previously been an army chaplain during the Revolutionary War. During his time as the minister in Greenfield Hill, Dwight established an academy and published a patriotic poem about his congregation which he dedicated to John Adams. Dwight was dismissed from Greenfield Hill in 1795 in order to become the president of Yale. Later ministers in the nineteenth century at Greenfield Hill included Revs. Horace Holley, William Belden, Richard Dey, and Thomas Sturges.  

The church records show that this was a congregation that included Black and Indigenous people, both free and enslaved, in the mid-eighteenth century. A list of baptisms from the 1760s shows baptisms of sixteen enslaved children, as well as two adults who owned the covenant. 

The first meetinghouse in Greenfield Hill was constructed in 1727. A new, larger meetinghouse was built in 1760, and a third church building in 1850 which was destroyed by fire. The current church was constructed in 1855. Greenfield Hill Congregational Church is active today and is a member of the United Church of Christ (UCC). 

This collection contains three volumes of church records which include admissions, dismissions, baptisms, marriages, deaths, financial records, meeting notes, and ecclesiastical society records.  

Materials in this collection have been digitized in partnership with the Connecticut State Library and have been made available through our New England's Hidden Histories project.